I successfully got Fedora installed with a locally attached keyboard, video and mouse. After everything was working, planning to perform my maintenance through SSH, I powered off, unplugged the keyboard, mouse, and video. I turned the box back on -- only to have it hang somewhere in the boot sequence. I plugged back in the keyboard, video, mouse, and all was fine.

OK, so I now know what works and what doesn't.

I'm wondering if I can get some help with how to have the boot process proceed smoothly w/o keyboard, video, mouse.

FWIW, I have a RH9 and RH7.2 box that boots fine without KV&M.

I'm not an expert, but I have tried getting a computer to run without a keyboard, video and mouse (in the end I used a KVM switch).

The BIOS may be causing the problem, many won't boot without a keyboard. You could try booting with only a monitor and seeing what happens, you will then be able to see any errors as they happen. If it is the BIOS there may be an option to ignore the check for a keyboard.